The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (46 page)

       
Cramer took the pan over to the sink and poured in cold water. ‘What’s the deal with you and Vander Mayer?’ he asked.

       
Su-ming froze. The cleaver glinted under the overhead fluorescent lights. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

       
Cramer shrugged as he put the pan back on his stove. ‘I just meant that you’re quite young to be doing such a job. He’s obviously a very important man, it must be very demanding to be his assistant.’

       
‘Turn the heat on. Medium,’ she said. She paused. ‘I’ve been trained to look after his interests,’ she said. She began chopping the meat again with small, precise movements.

       
‘What, like secretarial college?’

       
‘No. Mr Vander Mayer trained me.’

       
‘Trained you? How?’

       
‘He taught me about his business. He introduced me to all his contacts. He showed me how to deal with people.’ She finished cutting up the meat and scraped it off the chopping board and into a small, white bowl. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. ‘But he didn’t teach me cooking.’ She took a steel wok down from its hook on the wall and put it on the stove.

       
‘What about the fortune-telling?’

       
She looked at him sharply, then she saw from the amused look in his eyes that he was deliberately teasing her. She waggled a finger at him. ‘You’re trying to upset me, Mike Cramer.’ There was a blue and white striped apron hanging on the back of the door and she put it on and tied her hair back. ‘My grandmother taught me how to use the
I Ching
. My mother showed me how to read palms when I was a child. Most of it can’t be taught. It’s an ability. An inherited ability.’

       
‘A talent?’

       
‘A gift.’

       
‘Is that why Vander Mayer chose you, because of your gift?’

       
Su-ming folded her arms across her chest. Her chin was thrust defiantly up as if she was preparing to pick a fight with him. ‘Why? Why do you keep asking about him?’

       
Cramer leaned back against the sink. ‘It just seems strange, that’s all.’

       
‘Strange? What’s strange?’

       
‘He’s American, you’re . . . hell, I don’t even know where you’re from.’

       
‘I’m half Thai, a quarter Chinese, a quarter Vietnamese. My father was Thai, my mother half Chinese, half Vietnamese. What difference does that make?’

       
‘Because it feels like there’s more to your relationship than just work. It’s like  . . .’

       
‘Like what?’ she said coldly. Her eyes had gone hard.

       
Cramer held up his hands in surrender. ‘Hey, I didn’t want to offend you. It’s obviously something that you don’t want to talk about.’

       
‘No, you brought it up, you tell me what you think is wrong with my relationship with Mr  Vander Mayer.’

       
Cramer took a deep breath. He wished that he’d just kept his mouth shut. ‘The way you talk about him, the way you’re so defensive, it’s like he’s your father or something.’

       
Su-ming licked her lips. Her tongue was small and pointed. Cramer said nothing for a while. Su-ming waited for him to speak. ‘Back in Wales, you said you’d been with him for fifteen years?’

       
‘That’s right.’

       
‘You couldn’t have been more than a teenager.’

       
‘I was eleven.’

       
‘So Vander Mayer adopted you, is that it?’

       
‘Sort of.’

       
‘And your parents are dead?’

       
‘No. They’re not dead.’

       
‘So they gave you up for adoption?’

       
‘Sort of.’

       
‘Vander Mayer’s not married, is he? Isn’t that sort of unusual?’

       
‘I suppose it is. Mr  Vander Mayer is a very unusual man.’

       
The rice began to bubble over on the stove and Su-ming turned down the heat. ‘My parents were very poor,’ she said, keeping her back to him. ‘All they had were children. I had five brothers. We lived in northern Thailand on a small farm, near the Cambodian border. It was a very hard life, Mike Cramer. You have no idea how hard it was. It was dangerous too, when I was a child. There were mines everywhere, left by the Khmer Rouge. My father had to clear the fields by hand because the mines were so small.’ She used the cleaver to slice vegetables, her head bent low over the chopping board. ‘Mr Vander Mayer came to our village on the way to the border. This was a long time ago, his business wasn’t as big then as it is now. He had this big car and a driver and a translator. There was a place in our village, a noodle shop. They sold Thai food and soft drinks. Mr  Vander Mayer stopped there. He saw me and tried talking to me but of course I couldn’t speak English and he knew no Thai or Chinese. My mother asked him if he’d like me to read his palm. He thought that was so funny. He was quite a young man then, handsome and always smiling. He gave my mother five baht and sat down on a stool so that I could see his hand.’

       
Su-ming put the wok on the stove and turned on the burner under it. ‘He knew something about palmistry because he asked my mother how I’d learned. It’s not something Orientals do, you see. The Chinese read faces, but palm reading originated in France. My grandmother was Vietnamese and she learned it from an old French woman in Hanoi. My mother told him about my gift. Palm reading isn’t just a matter of interpreting the lines, anyone can do that. A machine could do it. It’s what you pick up from the person that makes the difference. I don’t think he believed her. He was laughing, I think he expected me to tell him that he would have a long and happy life and have three children and that seven would be his lucky number.’ She laughed bitterly, a harsh exclamation that sounded more like a cry of pain. ‘At first his translator wouldn’t tell Mr  Vander Mayer what I was saying. He kept arguing that he’d be annoyed, that I should only tell him good things. My mother scolded him and eventually he translated exactly what I said. I told him things that had happened to him in the past. Things he thought no one else knew about, things no one else could possibly know about. Secrets. He stopped laughing then. I can’t even remember what I told him, not all of it. After a few minutes I stopped looking at the lines on his palm. I was still holding his hand but I was looking through it. He started asking questions of the interpreter, and he translated them for me, but I couldn’t answer them, I could only tell him what I saw.’ She splashed a little oil into the hot wok and swirled it around. ‘Then I saw something in his future. I told him to be careful of an older man, a man who wouldn’t look him in the eye and who was always smiling. I warned him not to turn his back on the man, that he planned to harm him, that he wasn’t to be trusted. He asked me when, but I didn’t know, that’s not how it works. He wanted to know more, but I was tired and my mother told me to stop. You can’t force it, it either happens or it doesn’t.’

       
Cramer nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at him. He could picture the little girl, the man’s hand appearing enormous in hers, her eyes wide as she stared at his palm. ‘And it came true?’

       
‘He got back into the big car with his interpreter and they drove up north, to the border. I never thought I’d see him again. My mother took the money and used it to buy kerosene for the lamps and some material to make me a dress. She was sewing it that evening when the big car drove up to our farm.’

       
She dropped the chicken pieces into the hot wok and used a pair of chopsticks to keep the sizzling meat turning. ‘It was Mr  Vander Mayer. He was on his own. The back window of the car had been shattered and there were bullet holes all along one side. He’d used his shirt to make a sling and there was blood all over the inside of the car. He’d come back to thank me. He said that I’d saved his life and he gave me ten thousand baht. It was more money than my father had earned in his whole life. Then he went, back to Bangkok, I suppose.’ Su-ming scraped the vegetables into the wok and a cloud of steam billowed around her. She used a wooden spatula to stir the frying chicken and vegetables.

       
‘Your prediction came true?’

       
‘That’s what he said. He never told me the details. Later that year we had floods and we lost our crops and our animals. All the money was spent. Then Mr Vander Mayer came back. He told my father he wanted to help. He had a deal. He’s always been good at doing deals. He’d pay for my education, he’d take care of me, and he’d give my father one hundred thousand baht a year. In return, I would live with him, like a daughter.’

       
Cramer’s jaw dropped in surprise. ‘He bought you?’

       
‘Not bought, no.’

       
‘He paid for you, Su-ming. That’s like slavery.’

       
She shook her head as she stirred the contents of the wok. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like in Thailand. You can’t even imagine how poor we were. I had brothers who needed an education, medicine, food even. My parents had given me everything and they were about to lose the farm. It was a small sacrifice, Mike Cramer. And look what he was offering me. A chance to travel, to see the world. To learn things I couldn’t even dream about. And in return, all I had to do was to help him. Help him run his business and tell him things, tell him what I sensed about people.’

       
‘And what about your family? Do you still see them?’

       
She took the wok off the stove and poured the steaming chicken and vegetables onto a plate. ‘Of course I do. I see them whenever I want to. They’re very rich now, the richest people in the village. One of my brothers is a doctor, the other is at university in Bangkok. Mr  Vander Mayer has been very good to me, and to my family. Get the rice, please.’

       
Cramer drained the rice as Su-ming took small bowls and ivory chopsticks from a cupboard. She stopped as she saw Cramer looking at her. ‘Don’t,’ she said.

       
‘Don’t what?’

       
‘Don’t pity me, Mike Cramer. I chose the life I have. Nobody forced me.’

       
‘Are you happy?’

       
She shrugged as if her own happiness was a matter of absolutely no importance. ‘Eat,’ she said.

Lynch could see Marie’s hands tense on the steering wheel as the police car roared past, siren wailing and lights flashing. ‘Easy, Marie, love,’ he said. The police car flashed its headlights and a white Toyota pulled over to the roadside.

       
‘Sorry,’ said Marie. They were on the outskirts of West London and had made good time in the hired Rover. Marie had offered to drive once they’d reached Bristol and Lynch had readily agreed. Marie drove well, albeit a little aggressively. A couple of times he’d had to remind her to keep within the speed limit and she’d smiled shamefacedly and slowed down.

       
‘We’re going to need a street map,’ Lynch said.

       
‘I’ll stop at a newsagent’s. They’re bound to have an
A to Z
. What’s the plan? To go to this Vander Mayer’s office?’

       
‘I suppose so,’ replied Lynch. ‘I wish I knew more about him.’

       
‘It’s an unusual name.’ Her brow furrowed as if she was deep in thought.

       
Lynch patted her thigh. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something. You’re right, we can start with his office.’

       
‘I’ve an idea. I’ve a friend who works for
The Times
. He could get me into their cuttings library.’

       
‘Wouldn’t he want to know why?’

       
‘He’s never asked why before. I’ll tell him it’s for work. Researching a possible client.’

       
‘Are you sure he won’t be suspicious?’

       
‘Positive.’

       
Lynch thought about it as Marie drove. ‘This friend. Boyfriend, was he?’

       
‘With the accent on friend, Dermott. We went out a few times, I jumped his bones twice. Okay, three times maybe. Now he’s just a mate. It’s worth trying, they’ll have any story ever written about this Vander Mayer. They might even have his picture. Look, I tell you what, I’ll call him first, test the water. If he seems okay about it, we can drive to their offices in Wapping.’

       
Lynch looked at his wristwatch. He wanted to get to Vander Mayer’s office before rush hour, but they had plenty of time. ‘Okay, give it a go.’

       
Marie found a newsagent’s in Hammersmith. She left Lynch in the car and returned a few minutes later with an
A to Z
of London which she dropped through the window. ‘There’s a call box over there, I’ll give him a ring,’ she said.

       
Lynch watched as she went over to the phone. She played with her hair as she spoke to her friend and she winked at Lynch, letting him know it was okay. He caught sight of himself in the rear-view mirror and realised that he’d have to shower and shave before too long. A scruffy appearance always attracted attention, that was one of the things that had been drummed into him when he’d first enlisted as a volunteer. Marie looked good, considering they’d spent more than twenty-four hours on the road, but even she’d need to freshen up. Lynch decided that he might as well drive the rest of the way into the city so he moved across to sit in the driver’s seat. Marie came back to the car and got in the passenger side. ‘He said I can come around whenever I want. I’m to call him from the gate.’